


The Extended 1998 Major League Baseball Home Run Chase

by kutsushita



Category: An Oral History Of The 1998 Major League Baseball Home Run Chase (ClickHole Article), Baseball RPF
Genre: Baseball, Christmas, Clickhole, Crack, Gen, Humor, Monsters, Mpreg, Oral History, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:34:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21843016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kutsushita/pseuds/kutsushita
Summary: Or, how Willie Mays and two horny dicks saved the world, baseball, and also Christmas
Comments: 8
Kudos: 8
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	The Extended 1998 Major League Baseball Home Run Chase

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mayhap](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayhap/gifts).



> Inspired by [An Oral History Of The 1998 Major League Baseball Home Run Chase](https://lifestyle.clickhole.com/an-oral-history-of-the-1998-major-league-baseball-home-1825121240)
> 
> Thanks to my beta

** Chapter 1: Baseball Saved; The World In Peril **

_As September 1998 drew to a close, baseball fans throughout the world mourned the end of the Major League Baseball regular season. Although the postseason still loomed, nothing could compare to the excitement of the months-long spectacle that had just concluded. All the people wanted was more dingers from Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. And on the eve of the postseason, as millions of fans drifted off to sleep, visions of the two burly men hitting homer after homer flitted through their heads. Sometimes, when enough people wish for something all at once, a miracle happens._

_In the middle of forests all over the country, an eerie calm had fallen. There were no bird cries or animals scurrying through the underbrush. The brown covering of fallen leaves formed a perfect blanket, as tranquil as pristine infield dirt. Then a sudden low groaning broke the stillness. It sounded like the crack of a bat breaking clean in two while hitting a grand slam so hard that it broke into two completely new bats. Leaves began to shake and whisper horrible truths too terrifying to repeat. The trees began to creak and sway. Then in a violent frenzy like a shark culling the herd at spring training, roots burst up through the ground. Big, burly knotted trees everywhere pulled themselves out of the earth and took new form, matching that of the face that had been carved on them so many months ago. They all looked exactly like Mark McGwire._

_As the newly-Marked trees lumbered out of forests throughout the country, in Martin Scorsese's backyard, rounded mounds of dirt dotted the yard like so many pitcher's mounds, interspersed with the odd corner of a DVD case poking up from the ground. The mounds were too rounded, too bulbous, too pulsating, too grotesque and filled with a passionate vengeance to contain simply more copies of Chicago Cubs manager Martin Scorsese's arguably second greatest achievement outside of the year's baseball season, _Raging Bull_. And as millions of people slept and dreamed, the ground began to roil more violently, shaking the dirt from the mounds to reveal them for what they were: piles of cuboid eggs, no longer filled with ash, but perfect miniature expressions of the promise created and fulfilled between Sammy Sosa and Judas Iscariot The Bird. Sammy's children began to burst from their eggs betwixt the dirt and myriad copies of _Raging Bull_ , each a perfect miniature copy of Sammy's sculpted body with Judas Iscariot The Bird's beautiful plumage. They grew larger and more lustrous with each step they took, and by the time they reached the ballparks, fully formed, they stood en masse and with satisfaction to view the second army of their fellows, the towering tree tulpa Mark McGwires._

_And so, on the morning after baseball fans across the world mourned the passing of the 1998 Major League home run chase, they awoke with mortally incomprehensible glee to discover that it was far from over. Legions of Mark McGwires filled the nation's ballparks, no longer even needing bats to clobber homers, for they could extend their own living bodies to become the bats they held. They were joined by a calamitous clutch of Sammy Sosa's bird sons, preening and flashing their feathers to add even further to the spectacle of each moonshot they murdered. The leagues and networks had no idea what was going on, but weren't going to look a gift peacock in the mouth, and so they scrapped the postseason and began airing coverage of games between the never-ending legion of Marks and Sammys instead._

**Mark McGwire (Cardinals first baseman, 1998 home run champion):** Despite setting a new home run record, I was still kind of bummed about missing the postseason, so when a bunch of wooden copies of me showed up and wanted to keep hitting home runs instead, I thought that was pretty great, so I joined them. There was just something about them. They seemed like really swell guys.

 **Sammy Sosa (Cubs right fielder, 1998 home run chase runner-up):** I was a little bit upset because unlike Mark my team was actually in the postseason, but then I beheld my children and I realized that keeping my promise of vengeance to Judas Iscariot the Bird by breaking Roger Maris's home run record had actually healed me and my eggs were no longer filled with volcanic ash, instead producing these beautiful bird-children. And they were perfect, so I supported them in everything they wanted to do.

 **Bud Selig (commissioner, MLB):** Even though we had put all that planning into making the postseason a success, at first everyone was pretty happy with the Mark and Sammy takeover. Some people wondered how this inhuman army of clones of the greatest sluggers of the season would play baseball without pitchers, but those people were dumbheads, because who cares about that when you get to watch dingers? Wherever the balls were coming from, the Marks and Sammys kept hitting home runs regardless, and the fans loved it. 

**Mark McGwire:** The really nice thing about all of this was that the games never ended, so I never had to talk to reporters. And every day, a new record was set. 

**Sammy Sosa:** My children were majestic and so were their dingers, each subsequent homer going further and further, out of the ballparks, out of the parking lot, out of the city limits, out of my dreams and into their arms. 

**Bud Selig:** Baseballs started flying across state lines, Mark's clones and Sammy's children hitting their own incoming home runs back to each other, balls passing through the stratosphere, so that it really became a moot point who had pitched those balls initially. And baseball was finally pure excitement, like I had always dreamed, just the true joy of the most majestic moonshot. Some of those balls even literally ended up on the moon. It was really thrilling. But after a while, I started to wonder, would 1998 ever end? Would there ever be a 1999 Major League baseball season? Would baseball even need a commissioner anymore in this new reality? Was my existence meaningless?

 **Martin Scorsese (Cubs manager, filmmaker):** I was happy for Sammy, even though we could see it was starting to cause problems. Other countries, not yet indoctrinated into the one true religion of baseball, began to complain as all air travel around the world was grounded due to the orbiting home run balls. But as they sat enraptured in front of their televisions, they soon discovered the joy in watching these well-muscled specimens creaming endless dingers, and they too gave in to the ecstasy of watching Mark and Sammy rather than bothering with things like work or governance or filmmaking. I was so happy I dug a hole in my backyard and buried myself under copies of my movie _Raging Bull_. 

**Bud Selig:** Every day each Mark and Sammy set a new record, and the chase was eternal. The chase was everything. The chase was all anyone on planet Earth needed anymore, and everyone was completely and perfectly happy. Except one man. And the mythical figure that man was currently annoying.  


* * *

  
** Chapter 2: The North Pole **

_After giving up the 62nd record breaking run to Mark McGwire, Chicago Cubs starting pitcher Randy Johnson had his American citizenship revoked on the spot and was stuffed into an envelope addressed to "Cold." No one knew where he would end up, but there is one person who lives in the cold who always receives every letter sent to him even without an address._

**Santa Claus (mythical figure, package delivery man):** When Randy Johnson arrived at my workshop, at first I was angry, because I had been following the Major League Baseball home run chase along with everyone else and I saw him give up that moonshot to Mark McGwire. I didn't realize that when the president stuffed him in an envelope and addressed it to "Cold" that he'd end up here. But when I tried to get rid of him, nobody would take him, and he didn't have a passport anymore since they revoked his American citizenship. 

**Elf (toy manufacturer):** It was really bumming us out having him around, because he kept moping around all over the place, hitting his freakishly elevated head on doorways and rooftops and damaging our homes. 

**Santa Claus:** We were running out of options. Some people don't realize that Santa's "North Pole" isn't at the actual geomagnetic North Pole, and we've got Arctic birds here, and the population was rapidly dwindling. Randy Johnson kept making snowballs and throwing them at every bird he saw, and every time he hit one it exploded in a cloud of fluttery white, falling to the ground like so many feathers. It was actually just snow, because snowballs aren't hard enough to kill a bird even when Randy Johnson throws them, but it really traumatized the birds and put them off mating.

 **Elf:** We tried to stop him from doing it but he just muttered something about ritual sacrifice and the Houston Astros before his eyes rolled back in his head and then he could only talk gibberish and make a high-pitched keening noise unless we wrapped him tightly in a blanket and left him alone for four hours.

 **Brad Ausmus (Astros catcher):** We absolutely never forced Randy Johnson to ritualistically murder a bird with a baseball. I don't know where anyone would have gotten that idea. 

**Santa Claus:** In desperation I finally started going through my naughty list looking for someone horrible enough to send Randy Johnson to in lieu of coal. I was trying to figure out how I'd get his inconveniently-sized lanky body down the chimney with me, and also trying to figure out how I could even fly my sleigh with all the deadly home run balls whizzing through the atmosphere, when I happened upon a message from the Oracle.

 **Randy Johnson (former Mariners, Astros, and Cubs starting pitcher):** I never really liked it at the North Pole because it's cold and snow doesn't make a good baseball, plus all the elves kept making snide comments about my height behind my back. So when Santa called me into his office and said that the Oracle had foretold I was going to help save baseball and also Christmas and that to do that I had to get the hell out of there and never return, I was overjoyed.

 **Elf:** We loaned him Rudolph because he's a weirdo too and frankly that song was just propaganda and we never really liked him, so we wouldn't be too sad if he got taken out by a baseball on the way to America. We loved the eternal home run chase as much as anyone but it kind of messed with the reindeers' flying practice when they had gaping holes punched through them by little white cannonballs.

 **Santa Claus:** Thinking back on it there was a good chance one or more of the baseballs might collide with Randy Johnson or Rudolph too and maybe they would never make it across the ocean, but that was a chance all of us were willing to take to satisfy the Oracle and also get rid of both of them.  


* * *

  
** Chapter 3: The Willie Maze **

_Before the remarkably successful 1998 Major League Baseball regular season, commissioner of baseball Bud Selig tried a number of marketing ploys to drum up interest in the sport. One of these involved putting National Baseball Hall of Famer Willie Mays at the center of an enormous labyrinth and promising that whoever first found him would get to marry him. Everyone who tried was killed by the minotaur assigned to guard him and Mays was assumed also dead._

**Randy Johnson:** We somehow made it across the ocean unscathed, but Rudolph was pretty sick of dodging baseballs at that point, saying he had no desire to join in any non-reindeer games, and he bucked me off while we were flying over some giant concrete maze. I was miraculously unhurt by the fall, and wandered around the maze for several days, starving and dehydrated, until I passed out and was sure I was going to die. I managed to open my eyes one last time and saw a face looking down at me, and then that face said, "Hi, I'm Willie Mays. You found me." And then I passed out again.

 **Bud Selig:** Honestly, we were all pretty shocked later when we found out Willie Mays really was still alive in the center of that maze. I guess I hadn't really thought through the rules of my own promotion and realized that the minotaur I hired would probably be the first one to find Willie.

 **Willie Mays (man in center of maze, living baseball legend):** After the delirious man woke up again, I gave him some water and asked him who he was. When he said his name was Randy Johnson I realized we were destined to save the world together. The Oracle had previously told me I was going to save baseball, Christmas, and the world someday with the help of a horny dick, which was the only reason I let Bud Selig put me in this maze with an enormous minotaur in the first place.

 **Bud Selig:** Apparently the minotaur roamed around for a while, killing anyone else who entered, but when he finally found Willie it was love at first sight.

 **Willie Mays:** When the minotaur found me I saw his junk and figured he was the horny dick from the prophecy, so I married him. We had several hundred children together and I started wondering if getting knocked up by an extremely well-endowed monster all the time was really going to save the world, even if it was fun, until Randy Johnson suddenly showed up too and I realized the Oracle was probably fucking with me because that's what oracles do. Because obviously no one would ever name their kid "Randy Johnson" unless it was to fulfill a prophecy about a horny dick.

 **Randy Johnson:** Willie Mays sponged water into my mouth and fed me soup and then said that the Oracle had told him he and I were destined to save the world together and that he had an army of preternaturally physically gifted half-minotaur children that he had given birth to while trapped in the maze. But he didn't know what we were supposed to save the world from, so I told him.

 **Willie Mays:** I didn't get TV in the maze, so when Randy Johnson told me there was an army of Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa clones enthralling the entire world with endless home runs, cutting off all air travel, crippling the world's economy, and preventing Christmas, I knew what we had to do. I pulled on my glove, I summoned my children, I mounted my minotaur husband on his back instead of the way I usually mounted him, and I told Randy Johnson, "Well, it looks like we have some balls to catch."  


* * *

  
** Chapter 4: The Catch **

_It's an everlasting image in baseball fandom. Willie Mays, sprinting toward the outfield, reaching over his shoulder for a perfect basket catch. It's so iconic that of every ball every caught, it alone became known simply as "The Catch." But on Christmas Eve 1998, an even greater collective catch happened all over the country._

**Willie Mays:** We left the labyrinth, because obviously I could have left at any time if I really wanted to. I told my children what to do, and they dispersed.

 **Tony La Russa (Cardinals manager):** People saw them all over the country. There were several in my own ballpark. Each of the Willietaurs knew exactly where to stand. You couldn't have asked for a better fielder. Later, they said it happened simultaneously. All across the country, the Willietaurs crouched, their legs tight and bulging with restrained power, and then they pushed their hooves into the outfield grass and leapt.

 **Bud Selig:** One by one, they cleared the balls from the sky, some leaping into the stratosphere, leaving massive craters in the ballpark outfields when they landed. I thought, those were the most amazing catches I've ever seen. And it's going to be a huge pain to repair the craters.

 **Randy Johnson:** The real Willie and I went to Wrigley Field, where the real Sammy Sosa was watching over his clutch. For some reason Mark McGwire was there too. The stands were packed. We walked out of the dugout just as one of the Sammys launched a dinger over right field, and Willie went racing out toward the outfield, impossibly fast, then launched himself at least twenty feet in the air and caught the ball over his shoulder. It was a pretty great catch. The kind that makes you say "wow" if you haven't just seen an army of minotaurs catching baseballs in outer space.

 **Willie Mays:** As soon as I made the catch, I turned and fired a rocket to the pitcher's mound, where Randy Johnson was waiting. He looked startled, then turned and saw an army of Mark and Sammy clones encircling the infield. At their center, the real Mark and Sammy stood at home plate. 

**Randy Johnson:** I didn't want to throw that pitch. I was scared of what might happen if I gave up another dinger. But I looked toward the outfield, and heard Willie Mays say "Hey kid, you can do it, you horny dick!" and I remembered the Prophecy. So I turned back to face them, and got into my windup, and I pitched.

 **Bud Selig:** It was the final at-bat. Randy Johnson's lanky body unwound into his pitching motion, and the ball went zipping toward home plate, and then it exploded in a flurry of white, which resolved itself suddenly into dozens of smaller baseballs that continued shooting off in every direction, toward every waiting tree Mark and bird Sammy. They swung as one, torqueing their bodies violently, and simultaneously each and every one of them struck out, and immediately exploded in a giant poof of wood and feathers and vanished from existence.  


* * *

  
** Epilogue: Two Horny Dicks Saved Christmas **

_The legacy of the 1998 Major League Baseball home run chase is mixed. It is remembered for the joy it brought, but has been tarnished by the ensuing steroids scandal. For the most part, the incident that took over the 1998 postseason has been forgotten._

**Bud Selig:** In the end, no one had been able to keep track of how many home runs all of the Sammys and Marks had each hit in total, plus it wasn't actually part of the regular season, so we didn't include it in the official record. Everyone seemed to start forgetting it had actually even happened after they all disappeared, which I thought was probably for the best since I didn't want people to blame baseball for disrupting the world's economy.

 **Sammy Sosa:** I was sad when my bird-children/clones exploded. But I remembered that 1999 would be a brand new season of baseball, and also that Martin Scorsese's yard makes an extremely fertile nesting ground.

 **Mark McGwire:** I missed the wood Marks, they were my best friends and never ever talked to me. I took the shards of their wooden bodies home with me and used them to build a fire and invited Sammy over for a cookout. He brought some bird meat we roasted and ate together and it tasted like victory.

 **Randy Johnson:** Most people's memories of that whole postseason are fuzzy, so I never got any credit for throwing the pitch that finally struck them out. But the President did at least reinstate my American citizenship. After he signed the documents he turned to me and asked, "Hey, didn't you kill a bird that one time?"

 **Willie Mays:** My job was done. All the balls were caught, baseball could return to normal, planes could fly and Santa could deliver his presents. I had saved baseball, and also Christmas. And so I returned with my horny minotaur husband and my offspring to my maze, where I am still living to this day. You can see me when you close your eyes if you really try.

 **Santa Claus:** You know what they say, when a dinger takes flight. Merry baseball to all, and to all a good night!


End file.
